Hungry Donkey : Executive functions

This game presents players with four doors and they are required to open the doors to collect applies. The aim is to help the donkey to collect as many apples as possible by opening the most favourable doors. After opening each door the player receives apples or loses apples. The player must rely on their ability to estimate which doors are profitable and which doors are risky in the long run.

Play Hungry Donkey

Disks Challenge : Planning and problem solving.

The game presents players with four disks of differing size. Players are asked to arrange these disks in as few moves as possible to match a picture. However, only one disk can be moved at a time and large disks are not allowed to be placed on small disks. Each trial increases in the number of disks to arrange and only allows a maximum of 20 moves to complete the end result.

Play Disks Challenge

Memory Challenge : Recalling information.

The aim of the game is to remember as many pairs of pictures as possible. After the presentation of each pair, players indicate on a scale, how likely they are to remember the pair. After a break, players see another series of pairs. Players then decide whether they have seen the two pictures together before or whether a new pair has been presented, indicating how sure they are about their answer on a scale.

Play Memory Challenge

Color-Shape Challenge : Inhibition & attention shifting.

The game presents an object, either a triangle or a circle which is either red or blue. The player is required to sort the object by shape or by colour, dependent on a rule indicated at the top of the screen. To complete the game, the player must match the target shape to one of the two responses presented below the target object as quickly as possible.

Play Color-Shape Challenge

Number Challenge : Inhibition & sustained attention.

In this game, numbers are flashed one by one on the screen in a rapid succession. The player's aim is to press the space bar as quickly as possible every time a number appears. However, if the number presented is a four the player must NOT press the space bar.

Play Number Challenge

Patterns Challenge : Working memory.

Players view a series of boxes that light up one at at time, in a specific order. The player has to remember this sequence and click the boxes in the order they lit up. Each progression of the game gradually increases the number of lights which have to be remembered. In the second half of the game players have to click the boxes in reverse order.

Play Patterns Challenge

Soccer Challenge : Response inhibition.

In this game the player views a ball on a pitch. The ball is either on the far right or the far left on the pitch. The aim of the game is to press the right arrow for balls appearing on the right and the left arrow for balls appearing on the left. However, if a whistle sounds no keys must be pressed until the next ball appears on the pitch.

Play Soccer Challenge

Shopping Challenge : Metacognitive problem solving

In the Shopping Challenge players view a map of a variety of shops around a school. Given a list of items and their respective vendors, players have to judge how likely they will be to find the shortest possible route to purchase all the items and return to school. After completing their shopping, players judge how confident they were that they actually found the shortest route.

Play Shopping Challenge

Camera Challenge : Spatial rotation

The aim of the camera challenge is to determine which angle an object is being viewed from. Players are shown a 3-dimensional object on a left hand side of the screen along with a picture of the same object taken from a different angle. To win the player must identify from which corner of the box the picture was taken from.

Play Camera Challenge

About : Thinking Games

The goal of the Thinking Games site is to enable more flexible data collection for cognitive psychology experiments, with a specific focus on executive function tasks. The site was developed through projects run within the INSTRUCT Research Group, which advances theoretical accounts of learning by conducting experiments documenting cognition across a range of materials. The INSTRUCT group is led by Dr Michelle Ellefson in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

Data have been collected using this website for thousands of participants from a wide variety of projects conducted in the United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Cyprus, Greece, and Laos.

Programming of the site was completed by Dr Geoff Martin. The Thinking Games site was created initially through grant funding from the Institute of Educational Sciences (R305A110932), with subsequent funding for improvements and further data collection by grants from the University of Cambridge and the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/K010255/1). The current Thinking Games site is based on a smaller set of computer tasks initially programmed in E-Prime® by Dr Michelle Ellefson through funding from The Leverhulme Trust (F/215/AY) and The British Academy (SG-39180). Further funding is being sought to make additional improvements to the functionality of the site and to extend the tasks into other areas of cognition, with a specific focus on reasoning. Throughout the development and the implementation of early iterations of the website, we received feedback from a countless number of collaborators, research assistants, students (undergraduate and post-graduate) and volunteers that have been incorporated into the current version of the Thinking Games site.

As required by one of our funders: The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A110932 to the University of Cambridge. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

Contact : Dr. Michelle Ellefson

Any queries about Thinking Games or requests for additional information should be sent to Dr.Michelle Ellefson at mre33@cam.ac.uk